“The question is one of defense,” Balear said. “No matter what we do, we don’t have the forces to launch an attack. I told Elyssa as much. The best we can do is protect this city.”
Dirio sat down and looked over the waves. He’d never seen the ocean until he’d come to Kataile. It really was an impressive view. “I don’t see how you can block off entrance to the city,” he said. “The tide goes in and out. You can’t build a wall on shifting sand and water.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Riac replied. “Even if we used the largest stones we could move, they wouldn’t make a difference. At high tide they’d wash away, and at low tide there would be bare sand exposed.”
Balear scratched his chin. Unlike the other two men, he was looking north. Dirio opened his mouth to bring the young general’s attention back to the problem of the ocean, but before he could speak, Balear asked, “Do you know what this city can’t handle?”
Dirio cocked an eyebrow. “With its current forces? A dozen cats would probably be too much.”
Riac glowered, but Balear just shook his head. “Open warfare,” he said. “For all our training, we lack the raw materials to make the shields or heavy armor needed in field combat. If another army shows up, we won’t be able to repel them before they enter the city.”
Dirio frowned. “Right, and that’s why we’re trying to figure out how to secure the beach. What’s going on in that head, Balear?”
Balear stroked his chin. “We don’t need to secure the beach. It will do its job just the way it is.”
“I don’t get it,” Dirio said.
“I do,” Riac jumped in. “Even without fortifications, the space between the sea and the plateau is narrow. An attacking army will need to bunch up to get through it. Even if they far outnumber us, those numbers won’t mean much if they can only field a few men at a time.”
Balear nodded. “We’ll set up what barricades we can, and then block off the open areas with our best melee squads. The real defense, though, won’t come from any of that. It will come from the archers. We’ll position them just inside the city and up here on the plateau. They’ll shoot over our front line into the oncoming ranks. Our enemies’ corpses will become our wall.”
Dirio shivered, and not just because the afternoon’s winter wind flowed unobstructed across the plateau. “That’s pretty heartless.”
Balear’s eyes were set. “It’s war.”
Dirio had a flash of memory. He’d seen Balear like this before, after the soldier had first lost his arm. Balear had applied this single-minded determination when he’d trained to fight the Fubuki. “What will you give up this time?” Dirio asked before he realized he was speaking.
“What?” Balear snapped.
It was too late to back out now. “You threw away Veliaf to defeat the Fubuki. What are you tossing aside now?”
“This is the only way,” Balear insisted.
“Do I need to fight you again?” Dirio asked. “Do I need to prove to you that you’re being hotheaded?”
Balear looked back at him, and despite Dirio’s confident statement, he quailed before the soldier’s eyes. There was something different about Balear this time, something that made him even fiercer than when he’d challenged the Fubuki. “War is on its way to us, Dirio,” Balear said. “We have to be ready.”
When the words left Balear’s mouth, Dirio knew they were true. He had no idea how Balear knew, but Dirio was certain the soldier was right.
“What do you want us to do?” Riac asked.
“Get straw targets made, as many as possible,” Balear ordered. “Find any bowyers and fletchers in the city and get them working double-time. I’m sure you have metalworkers who make fish hooks. Have them make arrowheads instead. As for the soldiers, half of them will switch from short-range weapons to archery practice. Another quarter will keep focused on melee combat to serve in the vanguard. Take only volunteers for that; the melee teams will have the riskiest assignment.”
“What about the other quarter?” Dirio asked.
“They’ll meet me up here from now on,” Balear said. “They’re going to build catapults.”
“Catapults?”
“If the melee vanguard does its job, the enemy army will get bunched up. They’ll have no defense against rocks from the sky.”
Dirio whistled. “It’s a plan, anyway. I just hope it works.”
Balear looked at Riac. “What do you think?”
Riac didn’t answer for a long time. He looked down at the city below them. “King Angustion sent five thousand of us against the Kodamas,” he said. “He didn’t bring cavalry or siege weapons, just a mass of men. He thought that would be enough. Instead, we were slaughtered by the people you went to join. If you say this will work, I’ll support you.”
“In that case, I say it will work,” Balear replied. “We have a few hours of daylight left. Get the word out to the officers that I need to speak with them this evening. No exceptions. We don’t have the luxury of wasting time.”
As they headed back, Dirio leaned in and murmured to Balear, “This won’t solve the broader problem, you know. Defending this city won’t end the war.”
“On the contrary,” Balear said, “this is the only way to end it. You’ll see.”
Dirio slowed so he walked behind Balear. He smiled. After all this time, Balear was finally acting like the general Amroth had made him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Discovery
“Come on!” Minawë called. She tugged on Lyubo’s arm. “We’ll reach Sorengaral by noon if we hurry. I want to be the first to see it!”
“All right, all right,” Lyubo said. “We’re the scouts anyway. Show me what you’ve learned these past few weeks. Lead the way.”
The pair of them took off into the jungle, faster than Narunë would normally deem prudent. Yet as he watched them go, he smiled. “I told you I’d convince her to stay.”
Next to him, Rondel huffed. “It’s not like you did anything. All your conversations with her just upset her. I should be thanking Lyubo for taking advantage of her situation and getting all romantic.”
Narunë laughed. “That’s not something a mother should say.”
“Then how would you describe it?”
“I would say it was my fantastic leadership in picking the right men to accompany us from Sorengaral.”
Rondel huffed even louder. “At least she’s changed her mind, even if it was thanks to luck.”
“That’s the spirit!” Narunë bellowed his laugh again, his right eye winking.
Within a few seconds, though, his laughter fell aside. He looked seriously at Rondel. “So when will you be leaving?” he asked.
“You made me promise to see you all to Sorengaral. If I left now, Minawë might still follow me. I’ll wait for you to settle in. Then I’ll slip away some evening.”
“It’s too bad,” Narunë said. “There aren’t many people I can talk to like this. It’s lonely.”
“You’re surrounded by Kodamas who love and admire you. You’re getting a niece that a year ago you didn’t know you had. What’s lonely about that?”
“The niece I’m excited about. As for the rest, you know the answer. You were an emperor’s wife. It’s a lonely spot at the top.”
Rondel winked. “Maybe when Iren’s dead, I’ll come back and visit.”
Narunë looked Rondel up and down. He wondered if she really meant that. He hoped she did.
They walked and talked together another hour. Narunë’s pulse quickened with each step. After three months away, he would finally see his home again. He couldn’t wait.
In a way, he found his longing strange. Three months was nothing compared with his fifteen-hundred-year life, but he had grown attached to the collection of tree homes that marked the core of Kodaman civilization in Aokigahara. They had started out as warriors, but over a thousand years, they had changed into something more: a people.
A shout from the branches above and ahead of him pul
led Narunë from his thoughts. “Lord Narunë!” the voice called.
Narunë recognized the caller as Lyubo. That was odd. It was too soon for even him and Minawë to have reached Sorengaral. “What news?” Narunë shouted back.
Lyubo landed beside the Kodaman prince. Minawë was next to him. Narunë blanched when he saw his niece’s expression. She looked in shock.
Then another female Kodama dropped from the trees. Narunë blinked. It was Eritas, one of the scouts he’d left at Sorengaral. “Lord Narunë!” she said. “I’m glad you’re all right! We’ve feared the worst.”
Narunë brushed aside the concern with a wave of his hand. “We were delayed waiting for a slowpoke old Maantec,” he said with a wry glance at Rondel, “but we’re fine.”
Eritas wasn’t amused. “Were you attacked?”
“Attacked? The Yokai are on the run. They wouldn’t have dared to threaten us.”
“No, Lord Narunë, not by Yokai, by Maantecs.”
“Maantecs? The only Maantec in Aokigahara is this useless crone.” He jabbed a finger at Rondel. She scowled and put her back to him.
“Uncle, you don’t understand,” Minawë said. “Something’s happened.”
Narunë was tired of these games. “Someone spit it out, then,” he ordered, his face hard.
Eritas gulped, but she managed to say, “It’s Sorengaral. The Maantecs attacked it!”
Narunë’s heart caught in his throat. The Maantecs had never dared to invade Aokigahara. The rainforest terrified them; they called it “Suicide Forest.”
Rondel abandoned her fake insulted pose. She stormed over to the group, sparks in her eyes. “How far are we from the city?” she asked.
Eritas opened her mouth, but Narunë got there first. “A few hours at most. Eritas, lead the way. I must see it for myself!”
The group set off at a jog, the fastest they could manage in Aokigahara’s tangle. Rondel ran ahead of them, using her enhanced speed to clear a path through the brush.
Every fifteen minutes or so, a new Kodama appeared and joined their group. Each took up a position around the periphery to guard the troop.
No, Narunë realized, not the troop. They were guarding him and Minawë.
Sweat pooled in Narunë’s eyes, and try as he might, he couldn’t clear the stinging salt. Whatever had happened must have been serious to make his sentries act this way. They all knew Narunë’s battle prowess, and they’d all heard about Minawë killing the Fire Dragon Knight. Whoever these Maantecs were, they were powerful enough that the Kodamas feared their leaders might not be enough to handle them.
Two hours after Eritas met them, Narunë and the others reached Sorengaral. To most, the city would have seemed like just another patch of jungle. Apart from a few clearings between trees, the rainforest here was as dense as anything they’d traveled through on their way from Shikari. Even looking up, it was hard to spot the wooden houses nestled in the canopy and sheltered by huge, waxy leaves.
That was how it should have looked. Instead, as Narunë entered the city, he doubled over in horror. Dozens of trees lay uprooted, their houses shattered against the ground. Narunë hadn’t seen this much light on the forest floor since they’d moved in a thousand years ago. Great mounds of rock and soil jutted up. To Narunë’s eye, they looked like the crags of Shikari, only in miniature.
Then there were the Kodamas. Narunë’s people were always watchful, but today they seemed especially vigilant. Even before Narunë could identify himself, he counted twenty arrows trained on him. When he called out the all-clear, a horde of his brethren descended upon him and started talking at once.
Narunë held up a hand, and everyone fell silent. He looked through the crowd and found Kenwë, the Kodama he’d left in charge when he’d escorted Rondel and Minawë to Shikari. He gestured for the man to step forward. “Tell me what happened. Leave nothing out.”
Kenwë wrung his hands. “Two months ago, this woman rose up from the ground. She demanded that we hand over the Karyozaki. When we refused, she lifted the earth around several of the trees and knocked them over.”
Next to Narunë, Rondel clenched her fists. Minawë did the same. She growled through her teeth, “Hana.”
Narunë looked at his niece. “You know who did this?”
Rondel answered, “The Stone Dragon Knight, a Maantec named Hana Akiyama. We fought her in Shikari, but she was too strong. We couldn’t kill her.”
Narunë knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t avoid looking at his niece for her reaction. The woman stared at the ground, her arms limp. Narunë could guess what passed through her mind.
But now wasn’t the time to call out Minawë for blaming herself, not when a hundred of her subjects were within earshot. There would be time for that discussion later, in private.
More important at the moment was the Karyozaki. “Where is Palentos?” he asked.
Now it was everyone else’s turn to look at their feet. Narunë frowned. The blacksmith Palentos was the only person besides Minawë who had known where she’d hidden the Fire Dragon Sword.
Kenwë spoke without raising his head, “We tried to fight the Maantec, but our weapons were useless. Even our best plant magic couldn’t break her armor. She butchered our people. I thought no one knew where the Karyozaki was, and I feared she would slay us all. But then Palentos offered to take her to the sword if she left the village.”
Rondel’s eyes narrowed. “And she agreed?”
“Yes. Once she had the Karyozaki, she sank into the ground and left. But before she did, she . . . well . . .”
“Speak up!” Narunë roared. “What happened? Where’s Palentos?”
Kenwë sighed. “Palentos tried to stop her. I guess he figured that while she was distracted with the Karyozaki, he could attack her. But his attempt to breach her armor was no better than any of ours. When the Maantec saw what he was doing, she raised a . . .” he paused and cleared his throat, “a metal pole from the ground and speared him through the stomach.”
Kenwë’s nostrils flared. “She intentionally didn’t kill him,” he growled. “She avoided vital organs and instead let him die slowly from blood loss. She’s a monster.”
Narunë couldn’t believe it. If only he’d been here, maybe he could have done something.
Then again, even Minawë couldn’t defeat this Maantec, and she was the Forest Dragon Knight. Had Narunë been here, he would have been killed too, and the Maantecs would still have the Karyozaki.
What were they going to do? Hana could return at any time. They couldn’t stay here.
No, it was worse than that. Not only couldn’t they stay here, they couldn’t stay anywhere. The only way Hana could have known Sorengaral’s location was if the Yokai had told her. The beasts must be acting as spies for the Maantecs. If the Kodamas stayed in any place more than a month, the Yokai could potentially carry that information back to the Maantecs. Then Hana would return.
“Stand firm, Narunë,” Rondel said in that low, terse voice that refused argument. “Your people need not cower in fear. You have a queen now. You have a Forest Dragon Knight. Minawë fought Hana to a draw on the bare fields outside Hiabi. Here in Aokigahara, she would crush Hana effortlessly. You have nothing to fear now that she has chosen to stay with her people.”
Narunë raised his head. The old Maantec was right. He threw his arms up and addressed his people, “So a Maantec damaged our home. What of it? We’ll rebuild. We’ll become stronger. The Maantecs think they can strike us with impunity, but we’ll show them they’re wrong. If this Hana is so foolish as to attack a second time, she won’t survive it. We have Queen Minawë, the Forest Dragon Knight, to protect us! And she won’t fight alone. I’ll join her. We’ll all join her. We’ll show Hana and the Maantecs and any other damn fools who mess with us that the might of King Otunë lives on in his kin!”
Everyone cheered. Kodamas came up to Narunë and slapped him on the back, praising him and his leadership.
Narunë was glad for the
ir reaction, but he was more interested in how his niece had taken the speech. He searched the press of Kodamas for her face. He probably should have checked with her before declaring her their savior.
His eyes swept the crowd twice before his shoulders slumped. His fellow Kodamas kept up their celebrations, but he didn’t hear them.
“What’s the matter?” Rondel asked. Then her eyes widened. Lightning Sight flared, and she swiveled her head around.
“Seriously?” she demanded. “I wish Iren hadn’t rubbed off so much on that girl.”
Minawë was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Allure of Revenge
Lyubo tore through Aokigahara, his senses alert. It was the toughest tracking job of his life. Minawë could be anywhere. More problematic, she could be any animal. That capybara grazing on the river grasses. An ant crawling out of that acacia tree. One of the spider monkeys in the family group above him.
But Minawë wouldn’t be any of those. She didn’t want to hide. She wanted to run. Lyubo knew which animal he would choose if he wanted to do that.
That’s why he slowed when he saw the flash of black. Few jaguars had that black pattern to begin with. Fewer still would be running flat-out through the jungle in the midafternoon heat.
And none would have missed the hunter from above who descended upon it.
Lyubo landed hard on the black jaguar. It was a soft enough landing not to break bones, but it should have stunned the creature. Lyubo took advantage of the beast’s surprise to pin its head down. The claws were damaging enough, but those canines could tear out his throat or pierce his skull with a single bite.
The jaguar struggled with an unreal strength. That, more than any other sign, convinced Lyubo. “Minawë!” he called. “Get a hold of yourself! It’s Lyubo! I want to talk!”
The animal still struggled, but it reduced its thrashing. It spoke with a female voice, “Get off me!”
“Are you going to run away if I do?”
There was a moment of hesitation, and then, “Fine. No.” The jaguar stopped fighting.
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